Drain-cleaning implements of the type having snakes progressively insertable into clogged drains and the like have been well-known and widely used for many years. As commonly understood and as used herein,"snake" means a lengthy and tightly-wound coil of rigid wire or the like.
Many variations of such devices have been used and many improvements developed over the years. Many such implements have electric motors or other power sources to rotate a snake around the axis defined along its length. Such motors are in some cases supported in a base unit and in other cases may themselves be part of a portable implement.
Numerous disadvantages and problems are present in devices of the prior art.
One of the principal and most widely-recognized problems of devices of the prior art is that, during progressive insertion of such snakes into a drain, their lead ends encounter difficulty in passing through the traps within the drains or other obstacles in the drain. Nearly all operators of such implements have experienced situations in which the snake has to be jiggled, rotated, shaken, and withdrawn and reinserted many times in order to pass the drain trap.
Such insertion problems occur even though continued insertion of the snake and unclogging of the drain may be an easy matter after the trap or some other early structural obstacle has been passed.
The implements of the prior art have a number of other problems and shortcomings as well.
Many of such prior devices are very complex in structure and very unwieldy in operation. They are difficult to hold and manipulate during drain-cleaning operations, often requiring two hands and requiring complex manipulations for progressive insertion of the snakes into the drains. The drive mechanisms of some of such prior devices are complex, structurally unsound, and/or prone to breakdown.
The drive mechanisms of such prior devices often provide insufficient torque during startup, which can lead to stalling and the need to prematurely withdraw the snake from the drain to some extent in order to allow startups. In some devices of the prior art, power-driven parts are unshielded, thus causing a risk of injury during use and imposing operation complications to avoid contact with moving parts.
In short, there has been a long-standing need for an improved portable powered drain-cleaning implement.